Day 5, Twilight

Listening to Mum and Uncle Joe rave on over dinner isn’t what I expect. They’ve been sending cousins out looking in every direction and Mum has a map she’s drawn up. Sitting over it they mark up the places Uncle and some of the cousins have covered today. It’s the weekend so more family have joined in the search. I am so proud of my mob it makes my chest feel a bit lighter.

Uncle won’t look at me. Mum gives me a few hand gestures behind his back to say leave it be for now. He doesn’t say anything about my face so I guess she told him what happened. The guilt weighs down in my guts again, but I force myself to pick at the fish and chips they brought home.

I sit through their strategy meeting twirling my cutlery, trying not to think about how bored I am. Everything seems so much more dramatic when I’m sneaking around behind their backs. I should probably feel bad about that.

Every now and then I cast an eye at the map, noticing the markings Mum has made, following them with my eyes. I take my plate into the kitchen and get another pot on the go. I’m bored but I don’t want to be left out when I’ve made such a big deal about being included, so I walk back to the table. Before I sit down I take a better look at the page. It is a couple of A3 sheets Mum has stuck together and sketched from her’s and Uncle’s memories. There are a few glaring open spaces where property owners haven’t allowed us to search, not unexpectedly. But they’ve found a lot who will help, and they’ve been searching along the boundaries of where they can’t go. There’s one place that has multiple lines criss-crossing around the edges and none inside it.

‘What about the Potters’?’

Both heads swing around to me and Uncle’s anger hits me full force. I’m shocked – he’s usually a pretty laid-back kind of man. His look promises a private talk later that I will not enjoy.

‘Youse ave been everywhere except there, but we saw some of it,’ I try again.

‘We go where we have permission. Most of us aren’t silly enough to cross white people with guns,’ Uncle growls. Still, I can see it’s playing on his mind because he points at the surrounding properties. ‘We’ve gotten as close as we can. Most of the owners out that way don’t like the Potters much either.’